How did you go in the CrossFit Open WOD 14.4 this week? It was a doozy, wasn’t it?

If you’re unfamiliar with the workout, it went like this: 60 calorie row (800m-ish for me), 50 toes-to-bar, 40 wall balls, 30 power cleans and 20, ahem, muscle ups. Do as much as you can in 14 minutes.

I took an educated guess that given my loath/hate relationship with wall balls, I probably wouldn’t make it to the heavy power cleans. That was fine by me.

That left the toes-to-bar to contend with. Normally I quite like this movement, but 50 in one hit is a lot, and after busting your core and lats during the row, hanging from a bar and bringing your toes up gets pretty damn hard. Not to mention it can wreak havoc on your hands.

I hadn’t been paying much attention to my hands as of late, and had been building up some pretty decent calluses (yes, very attractive I know). Then, a couple of weeks ago, I did 63 toes-to-bar in a WOD and literally ripped them all off. Ouch, ouch, and ouch.

This is what it looks like two weeks on (mm, delicious). As you can see, ripped calluses don’t heal quickly.

Yesterday, I decided to be prepared and made some simple hand grips. They definitely saved my hands during 14.4! I made it through all 50 toes-to-bar without leaving any skin behind. Good times :)

Hand grips are VERY easy to make. It took me about 5 minutes. Plus, you can reuse them! All you need is some rigid sports tape.

Here’s how you make ’em:

1. Rip off a piece of tape about 40cm long

2. Fold it in half so it sticks to itself

3. Fold it in half lengthways with the folded edge along the outside

4. Rip off another piece of tape and lay it over the folded tape to stick it together

(Make sure there is enough room at the looped end for your finger to go through)

How to wear ’em:

+ Put your middle or ring finger through the loop (whichever one is more susceptible to calluses)
+ Wrap a fresh piece of tape around your wrist to hold the grip in place
+ Before you stick the grip to yourself, bend your wrist back to allow your wrist some movement once it’s on!

So today I did the CrossFit Open WOD 14.3. If you’re not familiar with the CrossFit Open, it’s a competition where Crossfitters around the world compete against each other by completing 1 set workout per week for 5 weeks.

Today’s WOD featured deadlifts that increased in weight very quickly. Deadlifts are notorious for causing lower back injuries as many people do them with bad technique. I know the coaches at CrossFit-U go so far as to stop people during a WOD if their form is poor. And it was good to see the folks at CrossFit NYC taking it just as seriously!

At the start of today’s session, the trainer, Jo, wrote this on the whiteboard:

He explained: “Think about why you are doing CrossFit. If you’re an ‘athlete’ and training every day for a serious event, you’re going to push yourself further but with that comes risk and sacrifices. For example, I’m training for CrossFit Regionals, so I’m doing really heavy snatches, but I’m fully aware that I’ll probably need a shoulder reconstruction by the time I’m forty.”

Jo went on to say that if you’re here for FUNCTIONAL training, remember that being ‘functional’ means you should be able to ‘function’ the next day! So there’s no point pushing yourself at the risk of injury.

It made sense to me, and I’m glad he was so honest with us.

There’s definitely a fine line between pushing yourself to new limits and pushing yourself beyond your limitations. I’ve learned that it pays to be aware of what your body is telling you when you’re on the cusp of going too far. Sure, I could have pushed myself to run that half marathon with an inflamed IT band, but at what cost?

It may have taken me weeks to recover. I wasn’t going to take that risk.

My goal is to someday run a marathon, but in a SUSTAINABLE way and maintaining physical functionality after the event. (While looking better naked, of course.)

So if you feel like you’re not improving as fast as you’d like, or if you don’t reach your physical goals – it’s totally ok! Are you training for Regionals? To you want to make the Olympic team in your sport? Or break the world record marathon time?

If not, that’s cool! Keep pushing yourself, but in an incremental, sustainable way. And if you are, then congratulations! I admire your guts and determination.

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oh hi there!

I'm Christina. In February 2014, I quit my 9-5 job to travel the world and do what I love. I'm here to help you get outside your comfort zone, build a positive mindset and live a frickin' awesome life. Along with a silly video or two. You know you wanna keep reading...